Junta troops have raided a large village of more than 3,000 residents near one of Myanmar’s most famous pilgrimage sites, forcing locals to flee their homes.
The raid on Letpan in Sagaing Region followed clashes between junta forces and the Sagaing People’s Defense Force (PDF) on Monday night along the Sagaing-Mingun road on the Irrawaddy River.
Fighting raged for nearly two hours as regime artillery pounded the site, damaging a monastery in Letpan, according to a Sagaing PDF member. Several villagers were arrested.
“We clashed with junta reinforcements heading to Mingun,” the fighter said. “Since then, they’ve been carrying out random artillery strikes. We still can’t confirm the casualties. The entire village has been forced to flee.”
This Letpan, one of many villages of that name in Myanmar, is around halfway between Sagaing town and the pilgrimage site of Mingun on the river road. Mingun is known for the Mingun Pahtodawgyi, an immense, unfinished pagoda, and the giant bronze Mingun Bell from the early 19th century.
Some 70 soldiers from the 33rd Light Infantry Division and allied Pyu Saw Htee militias looted homes in Letpan, arrested any male villagers who had stayed behind to protect their properties, and torched at least 20 houses, according to the Sagaing PDF.
Pro-junta Telegram channels alleged that PDF forces had fortified positions on a nearby hill and in monasteries along the Sagaing-Mingun river road, and accused them of planting mines. The channels also claimed that junta reinforcements faced resistance ambushes near Letpan and were unable to pass through the village.
Resistance forces said junta troops used drones during the clashes while artillery support was provided from Thayet Tapin village in Patheingyi Township on the opposite bank of the Irrawaddy.
A resistance fighter from Mingun reported that junta troops in Letpan are transporting supplies to their units in Mingun, adding that neither side has achieved control of the river road.
On a Facebook livestream, controversial ultranationalist monk Wirathu complained about the impact of the conflict on students from his free school who were taking matriculation exams.
“As you can see, we have come from Mingun to Mandalay [on the eastern bank of the river] by boat as the road is inaccessible due to the fighting,” he said. “I will send my students by car from Mandalay to Sagaing. This is the current situation in Myanmar. To get to Sagaing from Mingun, we have to go through Mandalay now. I am reporting this so that our commander-in-chief will know how people are struggling.”
Military tensions were still running high on Thursday though fighting had abated, said a Sagaing PDF member.
Junta troops also raided Letpan three times in January after anti-regime groups killed a local Pyu Saw Htee militia leader from Sagaing and his followers. Over 20 villagers from Letpan and two other villages were arrested in connection with the assassination.
Around 4,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged by junta arson attacks in Sagaing Township since the coup, according to Data for Myanmar, a group monitoring junta atrocities.
